Almost twenty-five years after the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — still the largest unsolved art theft in history — one of the stolen Degas paintings is delivered to the Boston studio of a young artist. Claire Roth has entered into a Faustian bargain with a powerful gallery owner by agreeing to forge the Degas in exchange for a one-woman show in his renowned gallery. … gallery. But as she begins her work, she starts to suspect that this long-missing masterpiece — the very one that had been hanging at the Gardner for one hundred years — may itself be a forgery. The Art Forger is a thrilling novel about seeing — and not seeing — the secrets that lie beneath the canvas.
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This is a great story that will keep you up at night wanting to find out what is going to happen next. It takes you into the world of art and that some art lovers will do anything to own one of the masterpieces from the great artists. To some art collectors it is not about the value of the piece of art, but more about being the only one to enjoy …
Claire Roth is an artist who makes a living copying paintings for an online retailer when Aiden Markel, an art dealer commissions her to copy a Degas painting. The painting was previously stolen from the Gardener Museum, but has recently resurfaced.
Clair has been in a scandal involving her now dead boyfriend Isaac. Her name is mud in the arts …
Enjoyed the art history bulit into the story line. I am now reading her book The Muralist.
This was fabulous! I suggested it for my book club and they unanimously loved it (which is in itself very unusual).
A painter is hired to forge a painting. And everything that can go wrong and right happens. A real page turner!
Claire Roth has been blacklisted by the entire art world. Rather than producing original art which no gallery, museum, or dealer will ever touch, she spends most of her time recreating other people’s art for Reproductions.com.Want Vincent Van Gogh’s starry night? It – or a virtually undetectable copy – can be yours thanks to Claire’s ability to …
Okay, I admit: I picked up this book largely because I’d just finished watching the Netflix documentary about the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist. I knew nothing about this book except it used the heist as a plot point.
Now, let me tell you how much I liked this book: I had a killer migraine yesterday afternoon, but according to my Kindle, …
Isabella Stewart Gardner, art collector and philanthropist, founded a museum of international art in Boston. On March 18, 1990 a pair of thieves disguised as Boston police officers entered this Museum and stole 13 works of art. This true story is the catalyst for the plot in this art crime novel “The Art Forger.”
The novel’s heroine Claire Roth …
The details about painting techniques were a bit dry at times for me — but the story gets better and better as it goes along. It ultimately becomes a page turner. I learned a lot about the worlds of museums, art and forgery. And while I usually prefer stories with a linear timeframe — I actually liked how Shapiro unveiled information from …
This story quickly draws you into the plight of a talented artist whose life has been unfairly devastated by leaders of the art world. Claire is an innocent who is just trying to make a living. Then comes Aiden, the charming, self-assured, wealthy owner of a famous art gallery offering a way to achieve her dreams. The characters are incredibly …
While there was an element to this book that fell a little flat for me (I think the romance didn’t quite work, but I suspect that might just be me), for the most part I found it intriguing and entertaining. I loved learning not only about art but about art replication and forgery, and feel like I’ll look at art differently now. Well written and …
This book was fun, exciting, engaging, and informative. It read as a very creative art mystery with lots of historical and technical info into the world of art. The end was unsatisfying, but I still had a good time with it. A fun read that will keep you turning pages.
I loved B.A. Shapiro’s The Muralist, but for some reason it took me a while to get to The Art Forger… I should’ve gotten to it sooner! I thoroughly enjoyed this book– the twisting plot, the characters, the setting… but most of all, of course, the art. I loved the detailed descriptions of not only the process of forging a great work of art but …
In this mystery-suspense by B.A. Shapiro, we meet Claire Roth who is a struggling artist with a past. She created a painting in the style of a famous and very successful artist who is also her lover. She created this painting to enable him to get past his depression and get started painting again. She gets rave reviews for the painting, but her …
This story begins at the home of struggling artist – Claire Roth. She cannot afford an apartment and an art studio, so she lives in her studio. She is extremely talented, but an incident with an ex-boyfriend three years ago has left her black marked in the art world. So she makes her living doing reproductions of paintings – mostly Degas. She …
If you are interested in the shady side of the art world, you will enjoy the art forger. A broke, rejected artist is redeemed by a highly unusual route. I liked that the author intertwined real art heist history with her present day storyline.
I would probably give this book 3.5 stars due to the art education I gleaned! As an art lover, I found this book rather intriguing. I liked learning more about the techniques in copying old masterpieces – such as baking a canvas in between each applied layer of paint, or painting varnish on top to age or yellow the painting, etc. Now I’m still not …
The plot is okay – but the background information is quite informative, about legally copying originals, techniques of proper copying, etc.
Amazing amount of research went into this – I learned a lot. Very entertaining!